Pages

Monday, January 19, 2009

Losing weight should be easy.

It is a simple math equation. If you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. So you need to either burn more (exercise), consume less, or both. Rock star research shows that, for most people, if someone has a deficit of 500 calories a day, they'll lose about a pound per week. If the deficit is 1000 calories per day, they'll lose, you guessed it, double that or two pounds per week.

What is 1000 calories? Each BK quad burger, pictured here, itself is 1000 calories. Unfortunately, it can't be viewed as every day that you don't eat one, you will save 1000 calories. I won't even get into the potato chip factor (you CAN'T eat just one) associated with this burger - that's a topic for another day.

Of course there is a limit to this. At some point, the body will go into starvation mode and slow down its metabolism. That's why the American Dietetic Association, The Obesity Society, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute all recommend a maximum daily calorie deficit of 500-1000 calories. Another gotcha is that all of the deficit isn't made up by losing only fat, even though there may be a surplus of that. Some lean tissue gets lost too. Also, you can't just like you can't point the fat loss to get rid of that muffin top belly. Would that it be so.

But losing weight isn't easy. BikeMike threw down the gauntlet to lose two pounds a week for six weeks to help get the weight loss back on track for the EagleGoals. I picked the gauntlet up posting a two pound weight loss for the week ending 1/13 and followed that up with a 2.6 pound loss as measured by the "official" Weight Watchers scale on 1/19. Although conceptually the road is well marked, reality is that weight loss, for me, it is a constant struggle.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this struggle but we'll find out the payoff on EagleDay.